Skipping of stones and other objects across the surface of a body of water has long been a recreational pastime and customarily involves use simply of naturally occurring more or less flat stones found at random on a beach or ground near a body of water across which the stones are skipped.
Fabricated skipping stones are also known such as in Hand U.S. Pat. No. 3,544,113, which discloses what are termed disc assembly members of hard or soft rubber or plastic and which have various configurations, such as convex on both sides, convex on one side and flat on the other side, and convex on one side and concave on the other, and which have varying buoyancy characteristics so as to float, or sink, or sink slowly. Edge placed cushioning rings are also provided in certain forms.
Also known are so called pitching discs as disclosed in Palovik U.S. Pat. No. 3,201,128, for use in competitive tossing or pitching games in the nature of horseshoes or quoits, which pitching discs are suitably fabricated in a flexible, solid rubber with one flat or slightly convex side and one concave side, the concave or hollowed out side having a thin smooth lip or ring around the disc periphery. In use such discs are said to tend to slide forward if thrown with the flatter convex side down and, when thrown with the hollower concave side down, the disc will slide forward very little if any distance at all and if the target surface is quite smooth the disc may be made to adhere to the supporting surface with a slight vacuum, created by a downward initially flexing of the disc center when the peripheral lip or ring strikes the target surface, followed by an upward rebound toward the unflexed position. If desired, weight may be added near the center of such discs to increase their inertia and vacuum adhesion characteristics.
Also known and of general interest is what is termed a tip-cat as shown in Nagler U.S. Design Patent 29,553, the specific use of which is not disclosed, but which is a non-circular body of generally rectangular cross section in its center portion and with tapered, pointed ends, the central portion of the body having generally concavical top, bottom and side surfaces. It would appear such an article is fabricated of rubber and is used in the play of a game called tip-cat wherein it is struck by a bat by one player and caught or retrieved by other players.